Sunday, January 23, 2011

Shivering Sunday

Very cold today. There were a couple of open spots on the St. Clair River that concentrated waterfowl. I also drove some country roads and saw almost absolutely nothing! There is not much out there this winter. Certainly no redpolls in this part of the province. I even stopped at Moore WMA which is always reliable and it was completely dead. Probably the first time in almost 20 years that has happened! I could not go in too far since the river was running high, but it was deathly quiet.

The usual open spot by the Sombra ferry dock held a number of waterfowl. Most notable was the concentration of Mute Swans. I counted about 110 in this small area. There were even more upstream off ICI. Most were lined up along the edge of the ice while some were swimming.

The outflow of ICI created an open area where lots of waterfowl congregated. Much of the waterfowl had a frosty appearance due to the steam created by the warm water. I finally saw a number of Common Mergansers today--something that has been scarce up until this point.

A fair number of gulls were out on the ice off ICI as well. I did not bother to get the scope out to look at them since it was so cold.

One of about 8 Tundra Swans﻿

Some Horned Larks were along the country roads and I managed to get close to one, as shown in the top photo.